By Dylan Charles, Waking Times 

It used to be easy to hold hostage the consciousness of humankind. The information which wove together societies was monolithic, disseminated by church and state. Understanding the world beyond one’s personal sphere of experience was limited to the assimilation of those perspectives. While evolutionary progress was slow in that paradigm, over time, small advances grew into sweeping changes, and the future is now upon us.

Today, we are wide awake in the age of atomization. A time when knowledge, wisdom, truth, trust, hope and faith have splintered into an infinite sea of preferences, all instantly available to all. An awakening has already happened, but now we’re confronted with the great challenge of deciding what to do with it.

Because of this, the awakened mind is not necessarily a mind at ease, nor at peace. This quandary is more unsettling than that of the sleepwalker. Shallow forms of bliss just won’t do, but now free of the bondage of ignorance, we are lost in opportunity, drowning in unrealized potential.

In the journey from asleep to awake we were possessed by a need for information, for light shone on darkness, but this phase must come to an end, lest our evolution stalls. We have to somehow go from awakened to actualized, along the way facing a new set of emergent challenges.

These puzzles are the pitfalls in our search for meaning in an evermore intensifying environment. Each of the three dilemmas noted below hinge upon the other two; they are not independent of one another. There exists a natural synergy and symbiosis between them, which must be honored. The decisions we make in each of these arenas will determine which paths become open to us in the other arenas.

For your consideration, what follows are the three most pressing dilemmas of the awakened mind.

1.) What do we choose to include in our awareness?

In very practical terms, when immersed in such total information awareness, as we are today, we must consciously or unconsciously choose what information and which ideas to consume. The choices span the entire spectrum of human possibility, from the darkest blackness of the human soul to the most shimmering golden light of infinite consciousness. We are exposed to all ranges of vibration. Choose we must.

There is a paradox at play here, though. In large part, the information which jolted us out of contemporary consciousness is fundamentally of lower vibration. It had to be that way. Total seriousness and gravity were required to brutally force our eyes open, to wake us up.

But continuing to feed on the darkness only draws us into a different trap. We can be wide awake while helplessly drowning in the abyss of base-level consciousness. As tantalizing and sensational as it is, this level of consciousness is heavy, always working to pull us under.

How much violence, brutality, murder, inhumanity and psychopathy can we look at? How much spiritual pornography can we safely consume? How long can we simmer in the mainline narratives before all progress is lost and we find ourselves stuck in yet another cage?

2.) How will we choose to communicate our awareness?

Just a short time ago, loneliness was the dilemma of the awakening mind. Yet now, so many are awake to some degree. With technology has come such tremendous freedom of communication, but it’s too much to process. To survive we take shelter on islands of comprehension, stranding ourselves with others of identical perspective. We are splintering into tribes rather than uniting as a cohesive human family.

In such a cacophony of competing voices, opinions and perspectives, all of which lay claim to the high ground of the awakened, we are confronted with the dilemma of how we share our perspectives and how we translate those of others. Do we insist that our understanding is final, and demand assimilation? Do we assume certainty and put on a confidence game of defending the information we like best? Do we get dogmatic, insisting that our truth is the only acceptable truth? Do we bludgeon others with self-righteousness?

Now that we know what we know, we have the choice of becoming repeaters of information, or craftsmen of a new story.

3.) What action will we take to honor this awareness?

Choosing to remain stuck in an endless spiral of negative information paralyses is a form of self-imposed psychosis. Nothing is gained if the awakened mind maroons itself on the island of perpetual study and looping examination.

This is resistance to the act of doing what is needed to experience the ideals which have motivated and inspired the awakening. At some point it becomes imperative to declare ourselves aware enough already, then find ways to take action toward the fulfillment of a purpose grander than the task of waking up.

There is infinite possibility in what actions an individual can take to accelerate the drive towards actualization, in both personal and communal terms. Any push toward action, though, great or meager, is honorable, for the body just needs to be set in motion, so it can stay in motion and then gain momentum.

To honor the progress we’ve made in exposing our condition it’s now necessary to accept the call to action. It’s time to actually create the world we wish to see manifest.

Final Thoughts

We find ourselves at the outer limits of the awakening. Can we exploit the momentum we’ve created which has gotten us this far, or will we return to the cave of delusion we came from? Choices.

Read more articles by Dylan Charles.